Ischemic infarction that is caused by the blockade of cerebral blood vessels and vasospasm that is caused by subarachnoid hemorrhage can be partially treated by increasing cerebral perfusion.
However, conventional cerebral perfusion-increasing devices have the problem of causing a plurality of complications because they are used only in an invasive manner.
In order to prevent this problem, the present inventor has devised a cuffing device for compressing arms and legs (hereinafter the “four limbs”), for this, the present inventor has applied compression pads that are generally used in blood pressure gauges.
However, since compression performed to increase cerebral perfusion should continue for a long time, unlike compression by a blood pressure gauge which is only performed for around one minute, problems arise in that a patient suffers from inconvenience due to a serious compression sensation and in that there is concern about the necrosis of the four limbs.
Furthermore, conventional blood pressure gauges take an excessively long time to measure only blood pressure, and thus are not inappropriate for use for a cerebral perfusion increasing device, thus a new scheme for enabling fast blood pressure measurement is required.
Related art documents are discussed below.
When the patented technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 2007-160088 is practiced, blood flow can be directed toward a head region by inserting a balloon-shaped tube into the main artery and thus partially blocking blood flow directed toward the legs. However, since the invention disclosed in the related art document also uses an invasive method, there is concern about side effects attributable to the inserted catheter.
International Patent Application No. 2008-065715 discloses a similar device. However, this is merely a simple blood vessel diameter measuring device, and thus is unrelated to a device for guiding a blood flow toward the cerebrum and also has associated serious concern about the occurrence of the above-described problem.
(Patent document 1) JP2007-160088 A
(Patent document 2) WO2008-065715 A